Benin prosecutors said Wednesday that the Republican Guard commander, a former sports minister and a businessman had been arrested on suspicion of planning a “coup d’etat” in the small West African nation.

Elonm Mario Metonou, the special prosecutor at Benin’s court for financial crimes and terrorism, said the alleged coup was planned to take place on Friday.

“It appears the Republican Guard commander in charge of the president’s security was engaged by the minister Oswald Homeky and Olivier Boko in order to carry out a coup by force on September 27, 2024,” the prosecutor said.

The court said Homeky was detained at around 1:00 am on Tuesday as he was handing over six bags of cash totalling 1.5 billion West African CFA francs ($2.5 million) to the commander, Djimon Dieudonne Tevoedjre.

Boko, known as a longtime friend of President Patrice Talon, was arrested separately overnight Monday to Tuesday in Benin’s economic capital of Cotonou, the court said.

He had recently started indicating that he would make a run for the presidency in 2026, when Talon’s second term in office ends.

Benin security forces have been on high alert after a series of attacks linked to violence from a jihadist uprising with its origins in the Sahel region that has spilled across its borders.

Once seen as a thriving multi-party democracy, Benin has become increasingly authoritarian since Talon came to power in 2016, critics say.

In August, an online critic of the president, Steve Amoussou, was detained and ordered to stand trial later this year on allegations of publishing falsehoods and “inciting rebellion”, judicial sources told AFP.